Out Today, Morrissey’s New Album Doesn’t Miss a Beat

Esteemed critics will evaluate what they may about lyrical structure, melody, and what have you, but when it comes to a new Morrissey album, the metric is simple. Will World Peace Is None of Your Business, his first release in five years, be loaded into heavy repetition at the many and numerous Morrissey nights across the country, in the bedrooms of the next generation of sad-eyed teens, and on the playlists of the multiple generations of former sad-eyed teens to whom Morrissey songs are liturgy and a night dancing to them communion? In short, the answer is almost certainly “yes.”

Back in 2004, after a similar break from recording new work (it’s been five years since his last album, 2009’s Years of Refusal), Morrissey released the album You Are the Quarry to great success. Songs like “First of the Gang to Die” felt evolved and current, but perfectly connected to his earlier work. Now, 31 years after the Smiths released its first single “Hand in Glove,” he manages to thread the same needle: youth rebellion, isolation, despair perfectly encapsulated and contextualized in verse written in the language of new millennial disenchantment. The album’s title track is its most literal on this front and would probably even—gasp—appeal to young Rand Paul libertarians, if they happened to be listening; if it weren’t so damn catchy, we might cringe at what almost sounds like a Tea Party rally cry against taxes and big government.

And that’s actually at the crux of what makes Morrissey the ur-emo, singular in his universal appeal. In his 2003 book Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo,Andy Greenwald said it perfectly:

“All hardcore kids loved the Smiths—the terminally maudlin English pop group fronted by the fey complexities of Morrissey. The Smiths shared a fatalism with hardcore, a sense of theatrics and outsiderness that struck a chord with those usually allergic to quiet music or—gasp—melody. Morrissey’s monkish/macho asceticism was a match for hardcore’s uncompromising, dramatic worldview; if all resistance is physical, then all emotions should be maudlin. Emo was, in many ways, the perfect marriage between the Smiths and hardcore—a splash of Technicolor in a monochrome world.”

Aside from tapping the zeitgeist, Morrissey at his best manages a second trick like no one else. He is undoubtedly miserable. His songs are born of despair. But they do not depress. With his music, you can wallow in it with out getting sucked down into the muck. Somehow he bottles up all the dissonance and misery and distills it into a potent stimulant. The song “Neal Cassady Drops Dead” references Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, spiraling through a litany of rhyming horrors (babies, rabies, scabies) at an excited pace, before landing on the final words: Victim? Or life’s adventurer? Which of the two are you? Play it loud, get up, dance . . . sway in that particular Morrissey fashion with all your friends somewhere, anywhere on a Saturday night. Things will be better.

World Peace Is None of Your Business is out today and fully streamable on Spotify. You should listen to it a few times ASAP. In fact, you should do so below while reading these lyrical excerpts which we feel make them instantly recognizable as new Morrissey classics.

Morrissey, “World Peace Is None of Your Business”

World peace is none of your businessyou must not tamper with arrangementswork hard and sweetly pay your taxesnever asking “what for?”ooh you poor little fool

Morrissey, “Neal Cassady Drops Dead”

everyone has babiesbabies full of rabiesrabies full of scabiesScarlett has a feverringlets full of ringwormangel of distemperthe little fella has got Rubella

Morrissey, “I’m Not a Man”

I’m not a manI’m not a manI’m something much biggerand better than a man

Morrissey, “Istanbul”

Rolling breathless off the tonguethe vicious street gang slangI lean into a box of pineidentify the kid as mine.

Morrissey, “Earth Is the Loneliest Planet”

day after day you say “one day”but you’re in the wrong placeand you’ve got the wrong faceand humans are not really very humaneand earth is the loneliest planet of all

Morrissey, “Staircase at the University”

“if you don’t get three A’s”her sweet daddy said“you’re no child of mine and as far as I’mconcerned you’re dead”staircase at the universityshe threw herself downand her head split three ways

Morrissey, “The Bullfighter Dies”

and you cheered“Hooray, hooraythe bullfighter dieshooray, hooraythe bullfighter diesand nobody criesbecause we all want the bull to survive”

Morrissey, “Kiss Me a Lot”

Bastille, mausoleumstock-yard, church yardyour mammy’s backyardI don’t care when or whereI just care that you’re there

Morrissey, “Smiler with Knife”

Sinking bed all warm and cleanonly sadness waits for mesmiler with knife, you’re just in time

Press the blade against my skinnever to make love againsmiler with knife, it’s alright

Morrissey, “Kick the Bride Down the Aisle”

You’re that stretch of the beachthat the tide doesn’t reachno meaning, no reasonthe lonely season

Morrissey, “Mountjoy”

The Joy brings many thingsit cannot bring you joysons of mothers huddled hereman and boy

Morrissey, “Oboe Concerto”

The older generationhave tried, sighed and diedwhich pushes me totheir place in the queue